bluffing any longer, Mate, there has never been a minute since the
train pulled out of the home station that every instinct in me hasn't
cried out for Jack. Pride kept me silent at first, and then the
miserable thought got hold of me that he was beginning to care for
you. Oh! the agony I have suffered, trying to be loyal to you, to be
generous to him, and to put myself out of the question! And now your
blessed letter comes, and laughs at my fears and says "Jack chooses
his wife as he does his friends, for eternity."

I have no words to fit the occasion, all I can say is now that
happiness has shown me the back of her head I am scared to death to
look her in the face. But I "shore do" like the arrangement of her
back hair.

Don't breathe a word of what I have written, but as you love me find
out absolutely and beyond all possibility of doubt if Jack feels
exactly as he did four years ago. If you give me your word of honor
that he does, then--I will write.

I have signed a contract for another year, and I must stay it out, but
I would spend a year in Hades if Heaven was at the end of it.

All you say about Dr. Leet fills me with joy. He does not need any
higher commendation in this world nor the next than that you are
willing to marry him! Isn't it dandy that he is going to back the
hospital scheme?

When I think of the way Jack has worked for ten years without a
vacation, putting all his magnificent ability, his strength, his
youth, his health even into that project, I don't wonder that men like